The Scars of Agent Orange: How Vietnam Still Feels the Effects of Chemical Weapons Used in War

In the heart of Hanoi, Vietnam on November 23, 2017, a Vietnamese flag stood proudly atop the State Bank building. This was just a short distance away from the Vietcombank and Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam buildings. The photo credit for this image goes to Reuters.

During the war, U.S. forces used defoliants to deprive North Vietnamese forces of cover in forests across Vietnam. Agent Orange, a mixture of 2,4,5-T and 2,4-D in a 1:1 ratio, was one of the most infamous defoliants used during this time. Its use resulted in over a million people developing major illnesses in Vietnam after the war.

The use of defoliants as a weapon of war dates back to Britain’s Malayan Emergency in the late 1940s when they created a substance similar to Agent Orange that also contained dioxin – responsible for the Seveso disaster in 1976. Alongside Agent Orange, the U.S developed a cacodylic acid mixture that was used to destroy rice plants which were difficult to destroy even with fire due to their hardiness.

Although its use against civilian populations has been banned since 1980 under international law, the effects on civilians during the Vietnam War were significant and far-reaching. Defoliants burned easily and spread quickly before sticking to surfaces – leaving long-lasting damage on anything they touched including trees and human skin alike. A haunting photograph taken by Nick Ut in 1972 captured these effects forever when he depicted children fleeing naked from their burning homes after being exposed to Agent Orange’s harmful chemicals.

At an international conference held in June 1972 at UN headquarters, Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme called out these actions committed by US forces as “ecocide” urging global leaders to recognize it as such and hold those responsible accountable for these heinous crimes against humanity and nature itself .